Beaufort County has landed an $8 million federal grant to overhaul safety along SC 170, a corridor U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace's office says sits on the county's high-injury network and where crash data has piled up for years. The funding, announced by Mace, targets a stretch of highway in northern Beaufort County that has drawn growing concern as traffic volumes climb and roadway design struggles to keep pace.
The grant comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Safe Streets and Roads for All program, which funds local efforts to prevent roadway deaths and serious injuries, according to WJCL. Mace said in a statement that “our families deserve safe roads, and our communities deserve infrastructure built to keep up with their growth.” Her office noted she had submitted a letter urging the federal transportation department to approve the county's grant application.
WJCL reports the grant-funded project covers a 17.5-mile stretch of SC 170 between the Port Royal Sound Foundation and Boundary Street. That's a narrower scope than the separate 24-mile corridor study the Lowcountry Council of Governments has been running from Boundary Street to SC 46, which was identified in the 2045 LATS Long Range Transportation Plan.
What the Money Will Actually Build
Plans call for about a mile of new or extended raised medians along with upgrades to four existing traffic signals, per the WJCL report. Another signal could be installed if it's later deemed warranted, though whether that threshold will be met remains undetermined. The project also includes four speed feedback signs, flashing beacons and high-visibility crosswalks, aimed at slowing drivers and giving pedestrians safer crossings.
Grant funding will support roadway changes intended to reduce crashes and improve traffic flow, according to the article announcing the award. The urgency behind the project is tied directly to how fast the corridor is filling up: daily traffic is projected to rise from about 20,000 vehicles in 2024 to 40,000 by 2050, the station's report notes. A separate Lowcountry Council of Governments study found daily traffic volume is expected to nearly double between 2026 and 2050 along most of the corridor, as reported by the Island Packet.
A Highway With a Documented Crash Problem
The numbers behind the push for safety upgrades are stark. Between 2020 and 2024, more than 3,000 crashes occurred along the 24-mile corridor, with nine involving pedestrians, the Island Packet found. Two intersections stood out as particularly dangerous: the SC 46 and SC 170 traffic circle logged 209 crashes during that four-year window, the most of any location studied, while the Okatie interchange at SC 170 and Barrel Landing Road recorded 185 crashes, the second-highest total.
Even recent, more localized data shows a mixed picture. At the SC 170 and U.S. 278 intersection, reported collisions actually dropped from nine in the first quarter of 2024 to six in the same period of 2025, but the number of people injured in those crashes rose from one to three, according to the same outlet's reporting. That intersection had already seen a major redesign completed in November 2024, when the county added a free-flow lane, a traffic light and a median.
Part of a Larger Push Along the Corridor
The $8 million grant isn't the only money flowing toward SC 170. A separate $103.8 million project is planned to widen the highway between U.S. 278 and SC 462, WJCL reports. The broader 24-mile corridor study itself cost $400,000 and was designed to tackle rising safety concerns and congestion along the highway, according to the Post and Courier.
Beaufort County isn't alone in tapping this federal program. In Alabama, the City of Daphne was awarded $8.1 million through the same 2026 Safe Streets and Roads for All cycle, which it plans to pair with $2 million in local funding for safety work along a two-and-a-half-mile stretch of County Road 13, according to Gulf Coast Media. For Beaufort County drivers, the hope is that medians, signals and crosswalks can start chipping away at a crash count that's climbed for years, even as the road only gets busier.
